Learn English Chimamanda Adichie Have a good BS detector with BIG subtitles
Harvard class of 2018 hello thank you so
much for asking me to be here today it
meant a lot to me to know that you the
students select the class day speaker
thank you congratulations to you and to
all your loved ones who are here
I spent a wonderful year at the
Radcliffe Institute here at Harvard
during a fellowship in 2011 and I fell
in love with Cambridge and so it’s very
good to be back
my name is Chimamanda in Ybor it means
my personal spirit will never be broken
I’m not sure why but some people find it
difficult to pronounce a few years ago I
spoke at an event in London the English
woman who was to introduce me had
written my name phonetically on a piece
of paper and backstage she held on
tightly to this paper while repeating
the pronunciation over and over I could
tell she was very eager to get it right
and then she went out to the stage and
gave a lovely introduction and ended
with the words ladies and gentlemen
please welcome chimichenga I told I told
the story at a dinner party shortly
afterwards and one of the guests seemed
very annoyed that I was laughing about
it that was so insulting he said that
English woman could have tried harder
but the truth is she did try very hard
in fact she ended up calling me a fried
burrito because she had tried very hard
and then ended up with an
human mistake that was the result of
anxiety so the point of this story is
not to say that you can call me
chimichanga don’t even think about it
the point is that intent matters that
context matters
somebody might very well call me
chimichanga
out of a malicious desire to mock my
name and that I would certainly not
laugh about but there is a difference
between malice and a mistake we now live
in a culture of calling out a culture of
outrage and you should call people out
you should be outraged
but always remember context and never
disregard intent if I were asked the
title of my address to you today I would
say above all else do not lie or don’t
like too often which is really to say
tell the truth but lie in the ward the
idea the act has such political potency
in America today but it somehow feels
more apt above all else do not lie I
grew up in Nigeria through military
dictatorships and through incipient
democracies and America always felt
aspirational when yet another absurd
thing happened politically we would say
this can never happen in America
but today the political discourse in
America includes questions that are
straight from the land of the absurd
questions such as should we call a lie a
lie when is a lie a lie and so class of
2018 at
Oh time has it felt as agent as now that
we must protect and value the truth
before I tell you about not lying I must
first admit
so before I tell you about not lying I
must first admit the line I routinely
lie about my height even at the doctor’s
office in Lagos when I’m meeting friends
for lunch I lie about being stuck in
traffic when I’m really still at home
only just getting dressed now there are
other lies sadly however I cannot tell
you about them without having to kill
you afterwards but what I know is that I
have always felt my best and done my
best when I hear toward truth when I
don’t lie and the biggest regrets of my
life of those times when I did not have
the courage to embrace the truth now
tell you the truth does not mean that
everything will work out actually it
sometimes doesn’t I’m not asking you to
tell the truth because it will always
work out but because you will sleep well
at night and there is nothing more
beautiful than to wake up every day
holding in your hand the full measure of
your integrity many years ago before my
first novel was published I attended a
Writers Conference here in the US it was
a gathering of many aspiring writers and
a few established writers now the former
there sparrin writers sucking up to the
latter the established writers was a
revered ritual of the conference and so
during one of the breaks I walked up to
a man and established writer whose name
I knew well but whose work I had not
read I shook his hand and told him what
a fan I was I love your work I said his
wife was sitting next to him so which of
his books have you read she asked and I
froze which had
you read she asked again everyone at the
table was quiet watching waiting I
smiled a mad smile and I mumbled the one
about the one about the man discovering
himself which of course was complete
but I thought it might be
convincing since that kind of describes
half of all the novels written by men
and then I fled but before I fled I
heard the writer say to his wife honey
you shouldn’t have done that
but the truth is that I shouldn’t have
done that
to read a novel is to give honor to art
why lie about giving honor to something
to which you have not I was of course
absolutely mortified that day but I have
come to respect what that writers wife
had a fantastic detector and
now that I have the good fortune of
being an established writer one who does
not like to miss an opportunity to
wallow in praise by the way I can sense
when a person is saying empty words and
it feels much worse than if they had
said nothing at all so have a good
detector if you don’t have it
now walk on it but having that detector
means that you must also use it on
yourself and sometimes the hardest
truths are those we have to tell
ourselves when I first started sending
out my early writing to agents and
publishers and started getting
rejections I convinced myself that my
walk had simply not found the right home
which might have been true but there was
another truth that took me much longer
to consider but the manuscript was not
very good
and in fact the first novel I wrote or
what I thought was a novel eventually
needed to be put away in a drawer and
I’m so grateful that it was never
published it is hard to tell ourselves
the truth about our failures our
fragilities our uncertainties it is hard
to tell ourselves that maybe we haven’t
done the best that we can it is hard to
tell ourselves the truth of our emotions
that maybe what we feel is hurt rather
than anger that maybe it is time to
close the chapter of a relationship and
walk away and yet when we do we are the
better off for it I understand that the
Harvard College mission calls on you to
be citizen leaders I don’t even know
what citizen leader means it sort of
sounds like a Harvard Graduate saying I
went to college in Boston which by the
way has to be the most immodest form of
modesty please class of 2018 when you
asked where you went to college just say
Harvard
by the way by the way I went to Yale for
graduate school not New Haven which has
other universities but we also know that
in the grand snobbery sweepstakes of
prestigious American colleges grad
school doesn’t really count its
undergrad that counts so it’s entirely
possible that I don’t even know how all
of this works so you’re charged to be
citizen leaders which I suppose means
that you’re charged to be leaders I
often wonder who will be led if everyone
is supposed to be a leader but whether
but whether you are a leader or whether
you are the lead I urge you always to
bend toward truth to err on the side of
truth and to help you do this make
literature your religion which is to say
read widely read fiction and poetry and
narrative nonfiction make the human
story the center of your understanding
of the world think of people as people
not as abstractions who have to conform
to bloodless logic but as people fragile
imperfect with prides that can be
wounded and hearts that can be touched
literature is my religion I have learned
from literature that we humans are
flawed all of us are flawed but even
while flawed we are capable of enduring
goodness we do not need first to be
perfect before we can do what is right
and just
and you have a class of 2018 are not
unfamiliar with speaking the truth when
you stood alongside dining-hall walkers
during the strike when you protest at
the end of daca when you supported the
black lives matter movement you were
speaking the truth about the dignity
that every single human being deserves I
applaud you I urge you to continue
[Applause]
but remember that now outside the cocoon
of Harvard the consequences will be
greater the stakes will be higher please
don’t let that stop you from telling the
truth sometimes especially in
politicized spaces telling the truth
will be an act of courage
be courageous never set out to provoke
for the sake of provoking but never
silence yourself out of fear that a
truth you speak might provoke be
courageous people can be remarkably
resistant to the facts that they do not
like but don’t let that silence you from
speaking the truth be courageous be
courageous enough to acknowledge that
even if there is no value in the
position of the other side there is
value in knowing what that position is
listen to the other side at least the
reasonable other side be courageous
enough to acknowledge that democracy is
always fragile and that justice has
nothing to do with the political left or
the political right be courageous enough
to recognize those things that get in
the way of telling the truth the empty
cleverness the morally bankrupt irony
the desire to please the deliberate of
fuchsine the tendency to confuse
cynicism for sophistication be
courageous enough to accept that life is
messy your life will not always
perfectly match your ideology sometimes
even your choices will not align with
your ideology don’t justify and
rationalize it acknowledge it because it
is in trying to justify that we get into
that twisting dark unending tunnel of
lies from which it is sometimes
impossible to re-emerge halt be
courageous enough to say
I don’t know this might be harder to do
with everyone calling you Harvard but
ignorant acknowledged is an opportunity
ignorant denied is a closed door and it
takes courage to admit to the truth of
what you do not know some people think
that Harvard is the best school in the
world personally I’m not so sure I need
to know what my people like Yale think
about that but I do know that for many
people all over the world Harvard has
become much more than just a school
Harvard is a metaphor for untouchable
intellectual achievement and now that
you are Harvard graduates
well actually almost Harvard graduates
you don’t actually have your degrees you
wouldn’t get them until tomorrow and I
suppose there is still time for the
Harvard administration folks to change
their minds about giving it to you but
assuming they don’t change their minds
and you do get your degrees tomorrow and
become Harvard graduates the world will
make assumptions about you many of them
will be to your benefit
such as the assumption of competence and
intelligence employers will pay
attention to your resume when they see
Harvard on it but there will be other
assumptions people who don’t know
anything about you except that you went
to Harvard will assume that you feel
superior that you think you’re all that
they will roll their eyes when you make
a normal human mistake you might here at
some point in your life in a tool that
cannot be described as nice
there goes Harvard now full disclosure a
friend once told me that the only thing
he learned at Harvard was to behave like
a person who went to Harvard and I have
often repeated that story quite
gleefully so you will inspire resentment
and
hopefully that will help you keep in
mind the humanity of everyone including
the privileged but these are some shells
that people will make about you a
minuscule compared to the enormous
privilege that comes with a Harvard
degree you now have a certain kind of
access a certain kind of power and I
know it is terribly cliched to say that
you must now use this power to change
the world but really you must now use
this power to change the world
[Applause]
change a slice of the world no matter
how small if you feel a sense of
dissatisfaction with the status quo
nurture that dissatisfaction be
propelled by your dissatisfaction act
get into the system and change the
system challenge the steel assumptions
that undergird so many of America’s
cultural institutions tell new stories
champion new storytellers because the
truth is that the universal does not
belong to any one group of people
everybody’s story is potentially
universal it just needs to be told well
change the media in America make it
about truth not about entertainment not
about profit-making but about
and and while you’re doing it be astute
about when you need balance and when you
don’t because sometimes seeking balance
gets in the way of telling the truth if
you’re reporting about the Sun rising in
the east you do not need to hear the
other side because there is no real
other side a Harvard degree will give
you access and opportunities but sadly I
have to inform you that it will not make
you invincible you still have that
fragile human core at the center of all
of us there will be times when you are
petrified of failing when fear of
failure holds you back in those moments
here is the truth that is easy to forget
you don’t actually know that you will
fail I was lucky to be given a great
gift by the universe knowing from
childhood what I loved most I was lucky
to have wonderful supportive parents who
encouraged me and my parents are here
today
writing is what I love had I not had the
good fortune of being published I would
be somewhere right now completely
unknown possibly broke but I would be
writing some of you here today like me
know what you love and some of you don’t
if you don’t know you will if not
something that you love then something
that you like or something that you
don’t hate or something you will find it
but to find it you must try the
wonderful Shonda Rhimes said very wisely
that you have to do something until you
can do something else try if it doesn’t
work out try something else I knew from
spending a year in medical school that
it was not for me actually that’s not
really true I knew even before medical
school but going to medical school
clarified it for me and it’s not wasted
time it’s experience and experience will
serve you in ways you do not expect I
cannot tell you how many times in the
course of writing my second novel half
of a Yellow Sun which was a deeply
which was a deeply emotional book for me
I felt choked with uncertainty I would
climb into bed and eat chocolate but I
knew that after all the chocolate eating
after all the sinking into a dark place
that I would get up and keep writing I
cannot tell you how often I would sit
down to write and instead I would find
myself going online to look at shoes and
to put different shoes in various online
carts and then remove some and put some
back an order some and then not all out
so I’m actually thinking of starting a
society of esteemed procrastinators and
I suspect that many of you would
probably sign up procrastinating is a
form of fear and it is difficult at
knowledge fear but the truth is that you
cannot create anything of value without
both self-doubt and self belief without
self-doubt you become complacent without
self belief you cannot succeed you need
both and there is also the fear of
measuring up of keeping up which for you
might be heightened by the heavy weight
of all those Harvard expectations I want
to share a line from a lovely poem by
Mary Oliver whoever you are no matter
how lonely the world offers itself to
your imagination when you fall into the
funk of competition when you compare
yourself with other Harvard graduates
when you worry that you didn’t get that
job at Goldman or McKinsey or in Silicon
Valley right after graduation or didn’t
win a Pulitzer at 30 or didn’t become a
managing director partner of something
at 35
think of literature think of the early
bloomers and the late bloomers think of
the many experimental novels that do not
follow the traditional form your story
does not have to have a traditional arc
there is an ebow scene Vanya G Cooney
bhutesu Xia it translates literally to
whenever you wake up that is your
morning what matters is that you wake up
the world is calling you
America is calling you there is work to
be done there are tarnished things that
need to shine again there are broken
things that need to be made whole again
you are in a position to do this you can
do it be courageous tell the truth I
wish you courage and I wish you well
[Applause]